Gymnopédies and Gnossiennesmay be his two most known pieces; however, he was far more prolific and influential than previously thought. He was the godfather of the French collective of composers called Le Six; John Cage once called him “indispensable”; he was labeled a precursor by the Impressionist composers; and he collaborated with painters, writers, and artists. He was an odd man with an odd life who gained celebrity later in life.

He was the man who explored boredom in harmony and once wrote a piece that when performed, lasts for ~19 hours.

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Merriam-Webster defines music as the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity.

However, does noise fall into this category? Can it be neatly combined and ordered to produce a composition? The Italian Futurists seemed to think so in the early 20th Century. However, their audiences were horrified. Turns out the Futurists may have been almost a century ahead of their time.

PBS Idea Channel makes the argument that dubstep, an electronic sub-genre dependent on noise, is the perfect example of the concept of noise as music.

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Vox Pop’s Earworm series presents a brief history of gated reverb. This is the production technique that was accidentally discovered in the beginning of the 80s and re-emerged about 20 years ago. Berklee professors Susan Rogers and Prince Charles Alexander speak on the technique.

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This is super exciting, especially for those of us of Puerto Rican heritage. Jack Delano, a Ukranian composer and photographer who settled on the island in 1946, and his wife, Irene, a designer and illustrator, created an impressive archive of photography, illustrations, letters, films, and insights delineating the society of Puerto Rico from the 1940s until the end of their lives.

The archive is now part of Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, in the Latino Arts and Activism Archive.

05) Dissertation: How U.S. Latino Musicians Reconcile Latin American Heritage with American Identity in Popular Music: Exploring the Four “A’s” to Musical Hybridity(August 2015 – August 2016)

This dissertation explored how U.S. Latino composers/songwriters express their Latin American and American heritages through the music they create. The demographic of focus is first and/or second generation composers/songwriters of Hispanic descent. Musical traits to be explored were phrasing, harmonic progressions, instrumentation, song form, tempo and rhythmic patterns, and production techniques. I have done fieldwork and interviews with a few subjects that fit my demographic profile.

The aim of this study was to investigate four possible stages of musical hybridity through a research tool I devised.

My aims were to understand how the oral tradition of Capoeira music drives the energy and movements of the participants’ dancing and acrobatics. This study explored the singing, rhythm, call and response, and instrumentation that controlled the actions of the participants’ inside the circle where two dancers dance in sync with occasional attack motions. I also wanted to include the participants’ choices in selecting motions, the range of emotions that they have, if they experienced a spiritual connection, and how their particular cultural/ethnic identity is expressed within this Brazilian tradition. Video and audio recordings, interviews, and photographs were produced along with a paper.

08) Graduate research: Morris Dancing(April 2015)

The purpose was to understand the musical tradition of Morris Dancing in Britain and the culture surrounding it. A short documentary was produced.

09) Graduate research: How Plena Is Being Used To Connect Puerto Ricans in the States Back To Their Roots (October 2014 – January 2015)

In this essay, I attempted to establish how plena music is used to connect Puerto Ricans in the United States back to their roots on the island and re-establish their unique, cultural identity.